


someone i used to know

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Phil Coulson: human disaster, Pining, Skoulson Romfest 2k16, Unrequited Love, mentioned Coulson/Rosalind, mentioned Daisy/Lincoln, not Lincoln Campbell friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skoulson RomFest 2k16 DAY 4 - 21 January - Skye</p>
            </blockquote>





	someone i used to know

"Who's Skye?"

Rosalind asks it over breakfast, the night after- the night  _after_ , and Coulson freezes, a forkful of pancakes halfway to his mouth. Rosalind's watching him, a little sharply, and she sips her coffee, raises an eyebrow. "You were talking in your sleep," she says. "It sounded like a bad dream.  _No, Skye, don't go. Don't leave me, just hold on._ That sort of thing. So who's Skye?" Coulson can feel himself flushing; he takes a deep breath, puts down his fork.

"She's..." he starts, pauses. "She was someone I used to know," he says. "A while back."

"Oh," Rosalind says, the syllable full of implications. "Where... what happened to her?" Coulson looks down at his prosthetic, and something complicated must show on his face that maybe he didn't intend, because her expression softens, turns understanding and a little sad. It's an expression he'll only understand later: the face of someone who knows what it's like to lose someone close. The face of someone who's known intimate grief. "I'm sorry," she says sincerely. "I didn't mean... well, I was curious."

"It's understandable," Coulson says, picks up his fork again, pushes the square of pancake around his plate. "I'm sorry I disturbed you. I don't usually..."

"It's fine," Rosalind tells him. "It's fine. She was your partner? Your girlfriend?"

"No," Coulson says. "It... it wasn't like that. We never..."

"Oh," Rosalind says again. "But you loved her?" 

It's a question Coulson's never allowed himself to consider before now, a question that's been too dangerous to approach even obliquely. He  _cares_ and he  _values_ and he  _admires_ , but love? It's too terrifying to contemplate. It's something that can't bloom, something that Skye would never even think of. He's too old, and she was too young, too beautiful, too vibrant for someone who's already died once.

(He knows it's there, sometimes, in his eyes, just when he looks at her, and it's something that makes him drop his gaze, something that makes him push her away.)

"Yes," he admits, very simply, and perhaps he should feel shame about this, about admitting he loved, loves, Skye to the woman he's just spent the night with, but in the end it just feels like relief. "Yes, I did. Very much."

"I'm sorry," Rosalind murmurs again, touches his hand across the table, and it's a gesture that gives him a surge of affection for her. He doesn't trust her, not so far, not yet. There's something, or perhaps more than one something, she's holding back. But it makes him wish, or wonder, if they could build something one day. It feels like he should try, at least. There's a freedom in admitting a love that won't, can't, go anywhere, he thinks a little bitterly; perhaps he could even move on. 

 

He doesn't like Lincoln, doesn't even try to pretend to himself that it's for any reason other than jealousy. It's uncomfortable at best, and he knows it's petty. He tries to work on it. Daisy can see it, the way he schools his expression into neutrality.  _Mr Campbell_ , he says, and hates himself just a little with how obvious he's being.

Daisy clearly doesn't like Rosalind either, but at least she has a reason for it. The Inhuman containment facility, for starters, and then there's the way Rosalind treats her. He tries to ignore the hurt looks Daisy gives him when she sees them interact, the jibes about  _first name basis_. It's not jealousy, not from Daisy, but it's her clearly feeling some small betrayal, and knowing that she's building something with Lincoln, it doesn't make a difference.

When Rosalind dies, Daisy's genuine sympathy is too much to bear. It reminds him too much of Roz reaching across a diner table, touching his hand, and the memory fills him with mingled guilt and shame and longing that he can't face right now. 

"Just answer the questions," he tells her, and she hesitates, pulls her hand back.  _No,_ he thinks before he can stop himself,  _Skye, don't go_ , but Skye's been gone for a long time already, and this is him pushing her away just a little more.

 

When he gets back from Maveth, he goes days without speaking to anyone. He wonders if he should quit, if SHIELD would be better off with Mack and May running it the way they're doing already. (Without SHIELD, he thinks, what's the point, and picks up the paperwork he's abandoned for too long.)

Daisy brings him occasional mugs of coffee, touches his shoulder and always looks on the verge of speaking, and Coulson waits for whatever it is she wants to say. Perhaps he shut down intimacy between them too successfully, he thinks, perhaps he made her feel like her care for him is unwanted, and tries not to watch the way Lincoln touches her so easily.

"Still up?" Daisy asks one night, pausing in the doorway of his office, and he jumps, glances up at her.

"Can't sleep," he admits. "I... get bad dreams, now." It's not strictly true. They're not  _bad_ , until they're terrible. They're just Rosalind, more tender than she ever was in reality, and Skye, Daisy, _Skye_ , as tender as she's always been, and then, always, Ward.

"I'm sorry," Daisy says. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean, uh, you... you probably don't, or it'd be someone else. May. You don't have to. Talk. With me, I mean." She blushes, looks flustered, twists the hem of her sweatshirt in her fingers as if she's not aware she's doing it, and Coulson bites his lip, looks away. He does. He wants to talk, to spill it all out for her, to confide and to feel her fingers brush across his hand. He wants to hide in the back of an SUV with her and sit in silence together.

"Daisy," he says instead. "It's fine. Thank you."

"You never..." she says, trails off, takes a breath. "You never call me Skye anymore, huh. Finally got used to the change?"

"I guess so," he agrees, because the truth isn't something he'd tell her even if he could. "It's what you wanted. I'm sorry it took me so long."

"What? No, Coulson, you-" Daisy starts, looking startled, and Lincoln stops in the hallway beside her, smiles a little awkwardly at Coulson. Daisy breaks off, shifts her posture just a little and turns to smile at him, tucks her hair behind her ear.

"Hi," she says, touches his arm. "I was just about to come find you. I- night, Coulson."

"Goodnight," Coulson replies, watches them go. Wonders what Daisy was about to say, and feels very tired.

 

He's known, for as long as Daisy's had her team, that Lincoln was never going to stay with SHIELD forever, and that the likelihood of her getting hurt in battle was greater than zero. He didn't expect that those two things would coincide like this.

In the darkest moments of his nights, he's made himself sick with thinking that when Lincoln leaves, Daisy will leave with him. Instead, it's a an argument fought over days, weeks, a fight that turns ugly, and then Daisy's team pitched against other Inhumans, a group led by Lincoln Campbell. Coulson's not there, doesn't see it, but when Bobbi brings Daisy home, carrying her gently and calling for Jemma in a voice that's just shy of terror, Coulson's sick all over again at the sight of her lying bloodless and still in a medbay bed. They've been here too many times, and there's no GH formula to save anyone this time around.

He pulls Joey aside, asks for details, and it's clear, even swaying with exhaustion, that Joey's torn between worry and admiration.

"Agent Johnson was incredible," he says, "sir, we wouldn't be alive if she hadn't gone in on the front line," and Coulson feels the burn of pride in her, because Daisy's never been less than the best and bravest of them all.

"She'll be okay," Jemma tells them, and Joey's shoulders slump in relief. "She just needs rest."

"You too," Coulson tells Joey. "Good work, Agent Gutierrez, but you're dead on your feet. Get some sleep, I'll be here." As if he'd ever be anywhere other than at her side, he thinks to himself, takes a seat next to her bed. She's too pale, dark shadows under her eyes, but she's alive, and perhaps that's enough to be thankful for. He touches her hand very gently, strokes his fingers over her grazed knuckles, lets himself feel what he's feeling. He doesn't expect to fall asleep.

 

"Coulson," Daisy says, "Coulson," and he frowns, blinks awake, realizes he's still slumped in the plastic medbay chair. "There you are," Daisy says, more gently, "sorry, I didn't want to wake you, I just- were you dreaming?"

He was dreaming. Always, always the same dream.

"I..." he says, stops, drags his hand over his face. The rasp of unshaved stubble. His eyes feel gritty. "You're awake. You're okay."

"Yeah," Daisy agrees, very soft. "Both of the above. I'm fine. You were just- you were talking in your sleep."

"I'm sorry," Coulson says, reflexive. Shifts in his chair, pulls himself upright. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"No, that... You were saying my name, Coulson."

"Daisy," he says, blinks again. He's still half asleep, disoriented by it. 

"No," Daisy says, and Coulson winces, because he's worked so hard to get it right, to respect her choices. She's honoring the family she lost, the family HYDRA took from her, but in his dreams, it makes no difference.

"Skye," he breathes, and Daisy nods, reaches for him. He's too far away for her to take his hand; her fingers brush his cheek. He leans into the touch, and Daisy takes a breath, traces her fingers from his jaw to his mouth.

"You still think I'm going to leave you," she asks. "As if I'd ever go, Coulson."

"You-" he says, hears his voice catch and break, and Daisy presses her fingers harder against his lips.

"I'm  _here_ ," she says. "I've always been here. Skye and Daisy, I'm the same person, and I- I don't know, Coulson. I think you could love me if you stopped pushing me away."

"Oh," he says at that. "Oh. Daisy. That's not what I-"

"It's not?" she asks. "It's not what you want?" She drops her fingers away, closes her eyes, and it hurts so much that Coulson can't do anything but take her hand in his and hold on.

"It's what I wanted too much," he admits, and after everything that's happened, telling her, it feels like relief. "It's what I wanted all along."


End file.
